Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste • Hacker News Board

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#61

Post by Scoundreller » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #48

Scoundreller wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some things (like SO2), yes. But not easy for CO2.

Yeah, it's much easier and cheaper to have someone else emit all of it (and most likely more than we would have) on your behalf on the other side of the world. Locally it wouldn't fly, because people don't like the idea of just burning it and releasing all of the pollutants, but if you ship it in the container that would otherwise go empty anyway, and then they do it for you, it's okay.

I’m assuming that developing country industry are buying the plastics waste for re-processing, not direct burning.

It’s re-processed there because it’s economically viable to do the sorting/cleaning that wouldn’t be with higher wages.

I don’t believe there’s wide-scale shipping of straight garbage trans-continentally, that’s cheaper to process locally/regionally.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#62

Post by logfromblammo » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

kwanbix wrote: post #28

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hygiene? You can safely clean glassware with the most aggressive of chemicals, then maybe run it through an autoclave for extra safety. Funny that people complain about glassware hygiene while chugging phtalate-infused beverages from plastic bottles.

Most "aggressive of chemicals" doesn´t sound too good...

Well... not THE most aggressive of chemicals, fluoroantimonic acid (H2F[SbF6]), the acid designed by top chemists to be the best acid that ever forcibly protonated a carbon atom into pentavalent carbonium.

That will dissolve the glass. (It can only be stored in PTFE.) It doesn't even have a pH, as it can't exist in aqueous solution, because it explosively destroys water.

Strong bases, like 50% or higher NaOH, also attack silicate glass.

You can clean glass with less aggressive chemical solutions that can still dissolve all organic materials and salts on the surface, without damaging the glass, and then remove those solutions completely, if the glass geometry permits. Or you can clean it well enough for commerce by inverting the bottle and blowing steam into it, something that would alter the geometry of a polyethylene bottle.

But a glassblowing robot can easily make a completely new bottle, that isn't going to have any unknown contaminants in it. Recycling glass doesn't save enough money to make it good business.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#63

Post by morio » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

yeahitslikethat wrote: post #31

devoply wrote: post #5

Replace with glass and aluminum, with what's left over burn it. That way it has no way of creating any other problems in the future. If you are efficient with burning it you could even capture the greenhouse gasses produced as a result and sequester those.

Glass as is too heavy. Penn and Teller did a bull shit on recycling. Only aluminum is good for consumer packaging wrt recycling.

Most aluminum packaging has plastic liner. Which has to be burned away in most cases.

Glass works if you bottle and reuse locally. Unfortunately infrastructure for this is long gone in the US.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#64

Post by Scoundreller » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #60

Scoundreller wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in sending materials elsewhere for cheap sorting or re-manufacturing. Especially when ships and containers are going that way empty anyway.

The problem is mis-representing what's in the shipment. (There's probably a lot of plausible deniability in the system. People throw a lot of trash into recycling bins for lots of reasons, including ignorance or laziness. Trash companies don't take responsibility to make sure that's what's in the bin is actually what's supposed to be there.) Read the article. There's dirty diapers mixed in with so-called "recyclables…

Right, the developing country buyer was being defrauded. Not unlike selling a PS4 on EBay and getting a brick in a shrink wrapped PS4 box.

If anything, this case just demonstrated the appetite for plastic waste. Buyers are willing to take risks to get their hands on it.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#65

Post by theklub » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #6

This might be a dumb question, but: why don't we do glass-style bottles? I live in America now, but when I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago, I remember that I would buy pepsi or coki in a glass bottle... and if I wanted to buy a second one, I would go back to the store and give them the old empty bottle, and they would compensate me a few pennies for it -- and the bottle then is presumably washed and reused. It'…

We do this in a few states. Actually I grew up in one of them and just assumed it was nation wide.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#66

Post by anon_cow1111 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #32

mattmanser wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get reusable plastic ones and decant then.

I think their concern is others’ disposal of the glass on trails. Edit: though I do dislike the idea of biking with glass bottles, especially in a backpack. A plastic container absorbs impact and can make falls safer. Not so much for a glass container.

I've lost so many tubes from glass fragments. Sometimes the tire even shifts around when going flat and pokes several more holes nearby. Still not as bad as people who throw bottles in the creek though.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#67

Post by tomjakubowski » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #59

opportune wrote: post #3

As far as I can understand it, the recycling industry is a well-intentioned waste of resources. It would be much better for the environment for all this waste to be sequestered in a landfill than for people to pay to ship it around the world only for most of it to be dumped or rejected (which, even when the Asian countries in question do accept it, they are likely to do anyway). These materials (plastics) are so chea…

So what you are saying is we need to create more plastics since they sequester carbon better than plants!

Like the comforting lie I tell myself when printing a long paper: you're sequestering carbon!

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#68

Post by gesman » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

“This is rubbish that you know cannot be recycled, and it makes me really angry that our country has to endure this,” she said in an interview.

Were they ever forced to accept this with no say into this?

Or it's just change of mindset to stop selling their own country as a garbage dump?

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#69

Post by rishav_sharan » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

This is simply a political issue at this point. If there is political will, then we can ban all consumer plastic. We used to live fine without them 40 years ago. We can do so again.

Damn the inconvenience. We must plug this at both source and disposal.

Re: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

#70

Post by luisaguimaraes » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

goda90 wrote: post #53

pen2l wrote: post #6

This might be a dumb question, but: why don't we do glass-style bottles? I live in America now, but when I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago, I remember that I would buy pepsi or coki in a glass bottle... and if I wanted to buy a second one, I would go back to the store and give them the old empty bottle, and they would compensate me a few pennies for it -- and the bottle then is presumably washed and reused. It'…

We could even do reusable plastic bottles. I saw it a lot in Chile. They'd have a deposit on 3-liter coke bottles with a thick plastic. You'd exchange the old bottle when you bought a new one to avoid the deposit. Then they'd take those, clean them, and refill them. Often the bottom would even be a bit banged up from multiple uses.

Yes, also in Germany they use reusable plastic bottles. But the companies in other states argue that it is hard to introduce the system. It would definitely be easier to use just glass bottles.